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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Holy Saturday | Holy Week | Mother Mary
Do you have a hope, a dream, a prayer that never seems to come, no matter how hard you strive and ask? Perhaps you want to draw or create art, but the needs of your children come first. Perhaps a dear one has left the faith, and you weep with St. Monica for their return. Or perhaps you long for children, or for freedom from an illness, or one of the many other burdens of the human heart. May I suggest that, like me, you develop a devotion to Our Lady of Holy Saturday?
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Holy Week | Sacrament of Reconciliation | The Parable of the Prodigal Son
“To Err is Human; to Forgive, Divine.” ~ Alexander Pope Click here to read the Parable of the Prodigal Son I don't know about you, but I find the concept of infinite love and mercy challenging to comprehend fully. I understand on a fundamental level that God possesses these qualities, but removed from my lived experience, I can't fully grasp them. Whenever someone does wrong by me, I often cling to the bitterness and anger for dear life. Even if I love them immensely, I can still experience this frustration with those closest to me. It almost seems impossible for people to let transgressions slide right off like water.
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Holy Week | family Lenten activities | family prayer
As we enter into the Most Holy Week on the worldwide Christian calendar, I cannot help but be drawn to one of the most dramatic scenes in the suffering of Jesus for our cause. The powerfully emotive scene that has been offered to us for centuries as the Second Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary is the Scourging at the Pillar. The Prophet Isaiah wrote many years before the arrival of Christ on earth about the “faithful servant” whose “wounds heal us.” In the Scourging at the Pillar, we see an innocent man get physically and emotionally abused for no crime he committed. Underlying his abuse was a desire to save the guilty, so that they may have life and have it to the fullest.
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Holy Week | The Way of the Cross | family prayer | mercy
"Ready, Set…Bang!" My arms pumped with high energy, my feet pounded confidently across the field and my legs steadily pulled me forward. I started the race and felt so great and alive! This time would be different. I would run with endurance, control, and speed. By the time I got to the halfway mark, however, my thoughts had turned sour. My chest tightened as my lungs cried out in anguish with each erratic breath and I began to wonder if my feet were still attached to my burning legs. The clear blue sky gave me no hope of a sudden tornado or lightning storm to whisk me away from my misery. I pathetically kept trudging along, feeling like my shins would rip apart any minute. I yearned to drop to the ground and crawl into a ditch somewhere until after the medals were passed out and everyone had packed up and gone home. In much the same way, the Lenten journey starts with a bang of grand resolutions and lively hopes.
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Holy Thursday | Holy Week | disciples
Holy Thursday takes on a whole new dimension of depth and meaning when reflecting on Jesus' Passion from the apostles’ point of view.
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Holy Week | Hope | Lenten Reflections
If your Lent has been like mine, it has been a season of darkness and dryness. Personal struggles, doubts, fear, discouragement, and dealing with the illness of my youngest sister are some of the challenges that have arisen on the journey through Lent, providing plenty of opportunity for built-in sacrifice and penance. Through the difficulties, however, the joyful theme of hope repeatedly emerged as the virtue to focus my attention on and embrace. I realized that I have been concentrating on the trials and hardships and taking my eyes off of Jesus and the hope of the Resurrection.
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